European Mathematical Society Committee

European Level Organisations for Women Mathematicians

There are several organisations and committees supporting women mathematicians in Europe. The first and best known is the membership organisation European Women in Mathematics (EWM),
Founded in 1986, EWM has several hundred members and coordinators in over 30 European countries. Its executive consists of a convenor, currently Susanna Terracini (Torino, Italy), and a standing committee.
Every other year, EWM has a general meeting which this year took place in the Hausdorff Center, Bonn. It has an email network and publishes an electronic newsletter. It also runs a biennial summer school: the 2013 school was held at ICTP Trieste as part of the Mathematics for Planet Earth programme. EWM also organises or supports other women in maths activities: this year in France there will be a meeting `Women in Numbers’ in Luminy this October and in November a forum for young women in mathematics in Lyon. EWM has produced several videos which can be found on its website; watching them is a good way to get a taste of the unique atmosphere of EWM meetings. Details of how to join EWM can be found on the website.

EWM is independent from, but has links to, its sister organisation the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) based in the United States. It also works closely with various national level organisations, for example the LMS Women in Mathematics Committee and femmes et mathématiques in France. A variety of links can be found on the EWM website.

The second organisation for women mathematicians in Europe is the European Mathematical Society’s Women and Mathematics Committee
currently chaired by Caroline Series (Warwick). The committee’s remit is to address issues relating to the involvement and progression of women in mathematics, and to support and promote the recognition of the achievements of women mathematicians. It acts largely as a liaison body between the EMS, EWM and other similar organisations on these issues. Past activities have included gathering statistics on the numbers of women mathematicians in different European countries, setting up a blog (now incorporated into the EWM website), and organising panel discussions at European Congresses.

Finally, in 2008, EWM and the EMS Women in Maths Committee jointly set up the EWM/EMS Scientific Committee. Its members are twelve distinguished women mathematicians, among them Dusa McDuff, Ursula Hamenstaedt and Ragni Piene. Currently chaired by Cornelia Drutu (Oxford), the main function of this committee is to advise EMS and EWM on scientific programmes and speakers for events aimed at emphasizing women’s scientific contributions, such as those organised separately or jointly by EWM and the EMS. Together the three groups have recently been instrumental in setting up a majority female summer school on Apollonian Packings to be held in Institut Mittag Leffler in June 2014, see http://www.math.ucsd.edu/~alina/ewm/

At international level there is now the IMU Committee for Women in Mathematics (CWM)
At its meeting on August 12, 2014, the IMU Executive Committee decided to set up a working group aimed at the establishment of a committee whose remit would be to promote international contacts between national and regional organisations for women and mathematics and to undertake other related activities, including responsibilty for this website. The IMU Committee for Women in Mathematics (CWM) was approved by the EC in March 2015. The first meeting of CWM took place in Cortona, Italy 4-5 September 2015; a detailed report can be found here. The central goal from now until ICM Rio 2018 will be to help to establish networks of women mathematicians especially in Asia, Latin America and Africa. CWM will be organising a satellite meeting of ICM 2018: (WM)²: World Meeting for Women in Mathematics to take place just before the ICM.
Caroline Series
Chair, EMS Women in Maths Committee
updated: February 2016